Seminar overview

Regulation is central to effective practice in every profession and has long been applied as a means to public health protection against malpractices and misconduct. Global professional bodies such as international Confederation of Midwives (ICM), International Council of Nurses (ICN) and governments have policies, guidelines and ACTs of parliament that direct regulatory systems. Regulation is a mechanism to raise the status of midwives and nurses to ensure that they have authority to act on their own professional judgements within their scope of practice. An educated, competent and regulated midwifery or nursing workforce will raise the standard of maternity care, health of mothers, babies and the generally- ill towards improvement .
The ICM defines midwifery regulation as “The set of criteria and processes arising from the legislation that identifies who is a midwife and who is not and describes the scope of midwifery practice.
The scope of practice is those activities which midwives are educated, competent and authorised to perform” . Whilst ICN similarly states that “Regulation advances public safety and protection through promoting the delivery of safe, ethical and competent care by nurses. The International Council of Nurses (ICN) believes that profession-led nursing regulation promotes public protection and quality patient outcome” .
Regulatory systems are involved with establishing, promoting and enforcing standards for education and practice. These actions are taken to show to the public, government, employers and other stakeholders that the profession is dedicated to maintaining the public’s trust in delivering quality services for optimal health.
In Ghana, over 20,000 midwives and nurses graduate from the various institutions of learning annually. Some of these and those in current practice are often unclear about what career pathways to adopt after the few years of clinical practice. An exposure to a career in regulation will provide insights into diversified careers and to facilitate early decision-making among midwives and nurses.
CEHDAR seeks to present a second webinar to provide a platform for midwives and nurses to interact with midwife and nurse experts who have and continue to travel an exemplary path in regulation in order to expose especially the young and growing population of professional nurses and midwives to contemplate and possibly start fulfilling, challenging and exciting local and global careers in regulation.